By the way, I feel the need to point out that whether the Senate is all that biased depends on how you count. The median Cook PVI of the Senate is R+2. In other words, to hold the Senate, they just need to win the popular vote 51%–49%.
I think that bears repeating. If our voting system satisfied the median voter theorem (i.e. we had Condorcet, score, or approval voting), the median Senator would represent the 51st percentile of voters by conservatism, whereas under a perfectly well-apportioned system, they would represent the 50th percentile of the voters.
The Senate is, technically, biased towards Republicans, and this is stupid. But the only reason this tiny bias matters at all is the extremism forced on us by plurality-runoff. IRV/RCV and plurality-with-primaries both tend to produce winners from roughly the 25th and 75th percentiles, so that bias makes us swing from the 51st percentile all the way over to the 75th.
A good read and important topic. I like the idea of the reverse filibuster (which I assume would be coupled with an amendment requiring all bills to originate in the House). The only thing I'd add, in the spirit of the 17th Amendment, is selecting senators by lottery. If we want the Senate to function as a deliberative body, large groups of randomly selected people tend to perform quite well.
Thanks for keeping this issue alive. Yes, thinly-populated red states have disproportionate power in the Senate — hence in confirming SCOTUS nominees and trying impeachments. In this 1987 article I showed that the same governance principle (giving states equal weight regardless of population) also gives them disproportionate power in the constitutional amendment process.
By the way, I feel the need to point out that whether the Senate is all that biased depends on how you count. The median Cook PVI of the Senate is R+2. In other words, to hold the Senate, they just need to win the popular vote 51%–49%.
I think that bears repeating. If our voting system satisfied the median voter theorem (i.e. we had Condorcet, score, or approval voting), the median Senator would represent the 51st percentile of voters by conservatism, whereas under a perfectly well-apportioned system, they would represent the 50th percentile of the voters.
The Senate is, technically, biased towards Republicans, and this is stupid. But the only reason this tiny bias matters at all is the extremism forced on us by plurality-runoff. IRV/RCV and plurality-with-primaries both tend to produce winners from roughly the 25th and 75th percentiles, so that bias makes us swing from the 51st percentile all the way over to the 75th.
A good read and important topic. I like the idea of the reverse filibuster (which I assume would be coupled with an amendment requiring all bills to originate in the House). The only thing I'd add, in the spirit of the 17th Amendment, is selecting senators by lottery. If we want the Senate to function as a deliberative body, large groups of randomly selected people tend to perform quite well.
#sortitionthesenate
Excellent and informative. Thank you.
Thanks for keeping this issue alive. Yes, thinly-populated red states have disproportionate power in the Senate — hence in confirming SCOTUS nominees and trying impeachments. In this 1987 article I showed that the same governance principle (giving states equal weight regardless of population) also gives them disproportionate power in the constitutional amendment process.
https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1868&context=mjlr
Absolutely right. FWIW, I argue for unicameralism at some length in my book. https://www.amazon.com/Democratic-Theory-Naturalized-Foundations-Distilled/dp/1793624976/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=